Once Barbie Chang Worked
Once Barbie Chang worked on a
street named Wall
once she sprinkled her yard with
timed water once
she wore lanyards in large rooms
all the chairs
pointed in the direction of one
speaker and a podium
once she stood up at the end to
leave but everyone
else stood up and began putting
their hands together
and that started her always wanting
something better
Credit
From Barbie Chang (Copper Canyon Press, 2017). Copyright © 2017 by Victoria Chang. Used by permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.
Author
Victoria Chang
Victoria Chang
Victoria Chang is the author of With My Back to the World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024), as well as the titles The Trees Witness Everything (Copper Canyon Press, 2022) and Dear Memory (Milkweed, 2021). The recipient of a 2017 Guggenheim Fellowship, she is currently the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech and the director of Poetry@Tech.
Date Published
10/02/2017